For the past few years, we’ve seen a major shift in the communication strategies used by corporate businesses. In the world of modern marketing, ‘corporate’ is no longer synonymous with ‘minimalist’, and ‘professional’ no longer has to mean ‘dull’.
Corporate businesses can unlock huge benefits by using animated videos. With a sleek, creative and impactful animation at your disposal, your business can engage, impress and connect with your audience infinitely more effectively.
If you’re still on the fence about the power of animations, keep reading. Below, we’ve outlined some key strategies for using animations to stand out in the corporate world, use cases of animation in practice, and some of the best examples of corporate animation videos.
Using Corporate Animation to Stand Out
It’s no secret that video content is the next big trend to rock the world of marketing.
By using videos as part of their campaigns, corporate businesses have achieved consistently higher customer engagement rates. This rise represents both the opportunity to reach a larger audience, and boost conversion rates, as viewers are successfully diverted to the company website or online shop.
In terms of internal campaigns, presentations and B2B pitches, animations and video content maximise the success of your message. In fact, statistics reveal that it takes less than 0.1 seconds to engage viewers with an animated video.
The combination of these two factors has led to a dramatic increase in corporate videos and animation. In fact, according to an article published by Smart Insights, business expenditure on digital video has risen by 53% since 2016.
What can corporate animation videos help with?
Here are 7 of the most effective ways that animation can be used within a business context.
Simplified Corporate messaging
Animations can be used to enhance all your company-wide internal messages, including everything from updates to motivational messages.
For example, say your business needed to update its employees of an update to its brand image. By necessity, this update will need to contain a detailed outline of how the team will need to respond to this update. Including, for example, anything that they need to update immediately, or any changes to the tone of voice and design elements that they currently use.
If this was communicated through a series of paragraphs and images, it’s very unlikely that everyone in the team would read the whole email top to bottom. And the clarity of what, why and when the change will be implemented, would be a lot lower.
In comparison, an animation video makes the content more relatable, engaging and easy to follow. Plus, by using an animation, you can maximise the number of team members that actually watch it, and comprehend all the ways in which the brand update will impact them.
Sales and marketing
Animation videos are perfectly suited to garner the interest of your target market.
Thanks to its versatility, artistry and high engagement levels, animated content has become a cornerstone of strong marketing campaigns.
The bold colours and entertaining-yet-stylish design elements make corporate businesses stand out amongst the crowded marketplace, and encourage viewers to click and see what they have to say.
What’s more, the animations can be made on-brand, featuring logos, brand colours and any other recognisable brand elements. This way, your animation can simultaneously boost brand awareness and brand recognition, amongst both new and potential customers alike.
Animation videos can be used to convey a wide range of different messages, including an explanation of the businesses' services or product range, announcing a product launch, promoting a new offer, building interest in a competition, and so much more.
Engaging Presentations
Internal presentations are always more effective when they’re made dynamic, attractive and interactive. And animated videos tick all those boxes.
Although you might be tempted to stick with your usual monochrome template PowerPoint slides, studies show that you’d be wasting both your’s and your team’s time.
According to Decktopus, when watching a standard business presentation, your viewers will have an average attention span of 10-15 minutes. The survey also identified that respondents named “the story” as a presentation’s most important and memorable element.
So, you need to get your message across quickly and coherently, using the medium of storytelling. As such, including a custom animation video is a great way to achieve the best results from your presentations.
Impressive pitches
To win new business, you need to go outside of the box. After all, you’ll be competing against a number of other rivals. So, how can you give your pitch the edge over your competitors?
We mentioned above how much presentations can benefit from the addition of animation, and those statistics stand for pitches, too.
With a stylish, custom-made animation included within your pitch, you can ensure that a potential client fully understands what your business is about, what it stands for, and what makes it unique.
By selling them the story that underpins your service, animations will help your audience to resonate with you and convince them of your uniqueness.
Making internal videos memorable
If you’re sending out an internal video, you want to avoid well-worn tutorials, which look like they could well have been used back in the ‘80s.
Internal videos are a great way to communicate important company messaging, but the best way to make them watchable and memorable is the style of animation. Trendy, colourful and creative animations will create a positive impression of the brand’s direction and your company image.
And, if it’s a video for new starters, a branded animation will ensure that they get a clear sense of everything that your company stands for.
FAQs
If you notice that the same questions keep coming up (internally, externally or both), then animations are a great way to provide answers clearly and succinctly.
For example, product tutorial animation videos give viewers a clear understanding of how the product works and its benefits. By creating and publishing this kind of animation, corporate businesses can give a full answer to common customer questions.
Not only will this save their customer service team time (which would have been spent on the phone or replying to customer emails) but this video will also significantly improve their website’s user experience.
Corporate training videos
Did you know that almost 59% of surveyed employees said that they hadn’t received any workplace training, and that they had to teach themselves the majority of their skills?
Internal training videos are a brilliant way to quickly and easily develop your team’s skill set.
By using animation to deliver these training videos, you can unlock higher engagement from your team, and it’ll be far more likely that they take part in the sessions independently, without management needing to push them.
Great corporate animated videos to take inspiration from?
As you can see, corporate animated videos can span a vast range of use cases. Whether it’s internal or external, to convince or inform, they are a fantastic representation of your brand. To show you the power of animation (when it’s done right!) check out these 4 examples of effective corporate animated videos.
1. American Express - Imagine What You Could Do
This charming animated video is designed to attract new talent to apply for a career with American Express.
It illustrates the ‘Innovation Lab’ in a fun and futuristic fashion, emphasising the fact that the teams ‘operate freely, to reinvent and build 24 hours a day’.
American Express’s innovation and creativity are further illustrated through the inclusion of robot characters, working alongside the company’s technology team.
The video clearly features American Express’s colour palette. This subtly links the video’s content to a sense of brand recognition, which would already be present in the minds of the majority of viewers, thanks to this global giant’s global successes.
2. Slack - Communication Without Chaos
This entertaining corporate animation cleverly utilises one of the core elements of Slack’s logo - its abstract shapes - and reinvents them, to illustrate how Slack solves a common workplace problem.
In this animation, different shapes, in Slack’s brand colours, are jumbled up and bouncing across the screen, in a fashion that is reminiscent of a pinball machine.
Then, the animation shifts, as the Slack logo features on the screen. Then, the shapes take on new movement, following an organised path along the screen, into the central logo.
It is a clear and engaging animation, which artfully enhances the message of the accompanying audio.
3. Oatly - THE NEW NORM&AL SHOW
In this fun-filled animated advert, Oatly has put its own spin on customer perceptions of its brand.
The animation features ‘Norm’ and ‘Al’, two characters that have been made from felt recreations of Oatly’s cartons. Through these shows, Oatly demonstrates how their product can fit within ‘normal’ family life.
This particular animation episode subtly helps consumers see that Oatly isn’t just made for vegans - people can switch to Oatly and do their bit for the planet, without having to ‘divorce meat and cheese completely’.
4. Deliveroo - Pick-up
In this custom animation designed for Deliveroo, we utilised the brand’s bright, iconic colours to maximise the video’s engagement level.
The animation informs customers of Deliveroo’s service, while simultaneously convincing them of its benefits.
In a light and subtle way, the animation creates a hectic city scene, with long queues and stressed city-dwellers waiting for their food. The video then illustrates how Deliveroo’s service connects you to all your favourite eateries, and allows you to enjoy your food all from the comfort of home.
It subtly emphasises the speed, ease and convenience that the brand has built its reputation upon.
Why work with a motion graphic agency like OK Social?
Whatever industry you are in, animation videos represent a fantastic investment for your business. From brand recognition to employee satisfaction, the rewards are extensive and far-reaching.
And, in order to unlock these benefits to their fullest potential, you need to work with a professional animation studio like OK social.
OK social is a 2D animation and illustration specialist, creating bold and on-trend animations for some of the country’s biggest corporate businesses. From the likes of Taco Bell to Ford, OK social has captured the brand’s message and USP, then communicated these elements in fun-filled and highly engaging content.
Our team of skilled animation experts will work with you on a one to one basis, getting to know you and your brand personally. Then, we will create an animation that achieves the best possible results for your brand, in the areas that are most important to you.
To find out more about our bespoke animation services, chat with our team today.
